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While the third episode of the second-to-last season of Game of Thrones aired Sunday night, HBO was trending on Twitter for reasons seemingly unrelated to Westeros: series produces Benioff and Weiss were criticized for their forthcoming Confederate, an alternative U.S. history in which the South retains independence. As with accusations that the showrunners failed to …

Last year witnessed a handful of significant deaths; and each has offered time for the public to reflect on their history and legacy. I don't know Prince or David Bowie or Fidel Castro or Janet Reno or Gwen Ifill that well, but I do know a great many people who have such deep connections to their work or …

Last week the internet acquiesced to the roll-out of the Male Romper. Marketed as a comfortable Bro-option that bends the difference between irony and cliché, my Facebook feed would have me believe that this Romper is a polarizing challenge to gender norms and a short new chapter in the never-ending story of our beloved Culture …

“We have entered a new, much less metaphorical phase of the campus-speech wars. We’re beyond hissing, or disinviting. We’re no longer talking about the heckler’s veto, but the masked-thugs-who-will-burn-trash-cans-and-assault-you-and-your-entourage veto.” No, Rich Lowry, Ann Coulter is not a liberal, “free speech” is not under attack, and Berkeley doesn’t represent an authoritarian assault on our values …

Aleppo Has Fallen. Call Your Representative. Take Action. Or Stand By, Do Nothing. All of these responses, circulating through social media unabated, are a kind of empty gesture framing the way “we” (whoever that might be) imagine “Syria.” Who needs to “take action”? Why has it “Fallen”? What is this “action” we need to take? …

My sophomore year of undergrad, sitting in a spring-semester honors course on “Ethics,” I was torn between watching squirrels compete against one another for hidden spoils buried the fall before and listening to my professor lecture on Karl Marx. I had taken an introduction to economics as an incoming freshman and that single course seemed …

Ten years ago I was an eccentric, talkative nerd who felt most at home arguing with adults on the internet. I was entering high school and becoming politically aware. Internet forums provided a kind of solace for my political awakening otherwise missing from my day-to-day life. And like most budding political wonks, I thoroughly enjoyed …

In discussions of poverty in 2014, Republican lawmakers reaffirmed their belief in a supposed “culture of dependency” surrounding “entitlement” programs. The Democrats’ response defended social welfare and expressed a need to raise the minimum wage. Both parties want to cater to the lowest socio-economic stratum, but neither has engaged in meaningful dialogue with those …

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Bio in Brief

Hank Owings is a man with strong opinions who thinks himself interesting (meaning he's probably not very interesting at all). He graduated from the University of Chicago with an MA in Religion, Politics, and Global History; and he received his BA (Magna Cum Laude) in English (Honors), Religion (Honors), and Philosophy from Ohio Wesleyan University. He thinks a lot about race and gender and democracy and cats, even though he only has a dog. He secretly wishes he was Vegan.